Presenting: The Slashers Survey (a day late cause I forgot to post this here yesterday)

[bubosquared]

The Slashers Survey is a 76-question survey trying to collect information about slashers, and giving slashers an excuse to talk about themselves, why they read/write, and all things slash.

Part of the idea behind the survey is to collect some hard data on the slash "community". Average age, average "fannish" age, whether they also write gen and/or het, etc. Often, in discussions, a subject comes up that really requires some actual statistics on slash fandom to be discussed in anything but a hypothetical sense. Hopefully, this survey will provide at least somewhat accurate data on slash fandom.

The collected date will of course be collated into stats, graphs, and spreadsheets, and all individual entries will be published on the site.

The Slashers Survey

Feel free to forward this e-mail to lists or individuals you think would be interested, or post it in your LJ, but please make sure to check with listmods first to make sure it's okay to post.

Comments

A quick correction to my answers

[kitsune13.livejournal.com]

I filled out the survey; in the section on sexuality, I marked "bisexual," but it was apparently recorded as "heterosexual." So yeah, you might want to note that, when you get it. :)

Re: A quick correction to my answers

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

Will do, pet. :)

(Small and fairly random gripe just because it's bugging me right now and you're the first willing ear I come across: am I missing something? Why do so many (for relatively small values of "so many") people object to having their name and e-mail on the published survey? People, what do you put on your published/archived stories, then? Your website? At least femgeeks is blocked for spambots as much as I can. Muh?)

Re: A quick correction to my answers

[sivan.livejournal.com]

Eh, I'm kinda not quite comfortable with that either, although I don't think I could give you a good reason. Maybe it's because some of that information is fairly private, after all, more than you'd want to share with the fandom at large? Or because e-mail addresses get used outside of fannish circles, too, and 'RL people' could search for it and see things they're not supposed to ... but then, there's the "well, what then do you put on your stories?" argument. Hm. No answer, really ...

What about giving people the option of having their survey published anonymously?

Re: A quick correction to my answers

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

I considered it, but I know I'd screw up and publish contact details of someone who didn't want it, and this is simpler for me.

Oh, and also, all of femgeeks is blocked from search robots (at least my sites are), so nothing ought to be showing up in search sites.

Re: A quick correction to my answers

[sivan.livejournal.com]

Well, given the number of submissions you already got (I just saw), that doesn't seem entirely unlikely. ^^; Oh well, it'll be interesting to see what everyone else has said, I just hope I didn't say anything unforgivably stupid in mine.

And yeah, true, at least not in the ones commonly used. *nodnod*

Re: A quick correction to my answers

[(Anonymous)]

I think some people don't want to admit to who they are, for fear of other slashers' opinions about different fandoms, or someone finding out your sexuality, etc.

Re: A quick correction to my answers

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

The fandoms thing I sorta get, but I'd think that the slash world is the one place where sexuality is a non-issue. Then again, considering the fact that there are girls/women pretending to be men in the slash world, I shouldn't be surprised.

[dazzy.livejournal.com]

Well, I tried to fill it out, but the submitted results page went all wonky on me, and I have no idea if it actually went through. Whoopsie.

Re:

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

Just checked, and it got here fine. :)

[satanael.livejournal.com]

Haven't filled it out yet but I'm interested in the results/data coz I'm writing my Bachelor Thesis about slash and RPS.

Re:

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

Oooh! I'd love to read that, actually, when it's done. :)

[satanael.livejournal.com]

I'll publish it on the net when I'm done with it in some months ... if I get a good grade and I'm satisfied with it lol Will be in German unfortunately

Re:

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

I'm Flemish-Belgian, so I'll likely be able to at least gte the gist of it. ^_^

[hirvi.livejournal.com]

I filled in your survey and found it very interesting. Satanael and I have our own slash survey, albeit for different purposes than yours, in order to test certain hypotheses we have developed over observation of two control groups. Our survey is here (http://www.freewebs.com/slash_survey/index.html), if you would like to fill it out. Some of the questions are ones that you have already dealt with on your own survey.

Your survey is more general and fandom-based, which ours is not, and this raises some interesting issues that we sidelined as not as important to our primary hypotheses. You say you will be posting the responses online (at the femgeeks' page?). If you are in agreement, may we pool resources? If you would be interested in any of the data collected from our survey, and if you would like it as a comparison piece to your own surveys, then let me know and once the data is collated we can send it to you.

I am very keen to know the results of your survey! And for once in my life, I've used my real name in answering it. Thank you for producing such a thought-provoking piece of work.